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No water in state-run schools, no medicines available in public hospitals — yet, provincial governments spend taxpayers' money on massive advertisements, Chief Justice Saqib Nisar said on Wednesday.

He made these remarks while taking suo motu notice of media advertisements by the governments of Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and Punjab.

The apex court constituted a three-member bench, led by Chief Justice Nisar, and fixed a hearing to be held on March 12. The court directed information secretaries of the three provincial governments to submit the record of awarding advertisements to print and electronic media within a week. The court also asked the authorities to provide details of how many advertisements were provided to each media house.

"Taxpayers' money is being used for self-promotion; big advertisements are awarded at the nation's expense," the chief justice said in his remarks, asking, "Doesn't this equate to pre-poll rigging?"

The chief justice said that the provincial governments run advertisements in the media with large logos and pictures to promote their projects, "yet 4,500 schools in Sindh are deprived of potable water".

"They [govts] will have to promote their work at their own expense," he added.

SC dismisses petitions

The apex court dismissed two separate petitions on Wednesday; one seeking contempt of court proceedings against ousted premier Nawaz Sharif and the other conducting accountability of higher judiciary through a parliamentary committee.

The first one was submitted against Sharif during his tenure as premier. The petitioner had argued that Sharif did not follow the court orders in connection with empowering local representatives. The chief justice scraped the petition and ruled that local government elections had been held so the plea stands infructuous.

The second one was a review petition as the SC registrar had already raised objections. The petitioner had attempted to move the court, seeking accountability of higher judiciary through a parliamentary committee. Barrister Zafarullah Khan of the Watan Party had also asked the court to include words "Sadiq" and "Ameen" in the code of conduct for judges.

In an in-chamber hearing of the appeal, the chief justice upheld the objections raised by the registrar office on the petition. Earlier, the office had rejected the petition, declaring it a plea with ill-intent to defame the judiciary.

On DawnNews

Comments (45) Closed

Hasnain Haque

Feb 28, 2018 02:05pm

Finally someone is taking notice of this massive scandal and bribery, first question is why the need for so much advertisement, 2nd why only to govt chosen networks, if something has to be advertised than it should be distributed to most popular networks and not to the ones who spew out propaganda on behalf of the govt. Once again if the parliament worked or institutions were honest then this would not happen.

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muzammil

Feb 28, 2018 02:07pm

Bravo! CJP

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Masood husain

Feb 28, 2018 02:07pm

Way to go Sir

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Hasnain Haque

Feb 28, 2018 02:08pm

This bribery of channels who support the PMLN has been going on for so long but no one takes notice, reason the parliament doesn't work and institutions are corrupt. This sort of thing would never happen in a democracy or civilized world.

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Hasnain Haque

Feb 28, 2018 02:09pm

Its astonishing how all advertisement goes to GEO network, no one is able to question it, authorities do noting, parliament keeps quiet, finally someone has the courage to ask the right questions.

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Chishti

Feb 28, 2018 02:10pm

bravo....

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Cool

Feb 28, 2018 02:15pm

Excellent step biggest beneficiary is MSR of The news and Jang group

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Omer

Feb 28, 2018 02:18pm

Thank you CJ for taking notice.

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Hameed Kazakhstan

Feb 28, 2018 02:21pm

This is very good move to block these advertising competition forever. Otherwise school head masters and hospital doctors should also be allowed to advertise their work in media and spend half of their budget for this purpose.

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M1 Jamal

Feb 28, 2018 02:26pm

101% endorsement of Chief Justice findings and observation.These politicians are making fool of people.

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KRM

Feb 28, 2018 02:26pm

Excellent step

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Omer

Feb 28, 2018 02:28pm

There should be no advertisement by Govt. to show the development projects started by Govt as people can see around them how much progress we achieved in the past 30 years. People can see how good the medical facilities in the country or province when they visit the hospitals and also know how good the education system is when they pay heavy feeses of private schools, colleges and universities since these facilities are no more available to citizens. People also know how good the basic facilities when they buy water bottle for drinking when they know the tap water is polluted and hazardous for health. And one more advertisement of Government of Sindh is the water tankers which runs on every street of Karachi who steal the water from the citizens and then sell them the same water on hafty prices.

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wellwisher

Feb 28, 2018 02:31pm

CJP pl also take notice of pending court cases

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Dr. Salaria, Aamir Ahmad

Feb 28, 2018 02:34pm

Excellent move by the Chief Justice of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.

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Shahmeer

Feb 28, 2018 02:35pm

Good decision.

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Amjad

Feb 28, 2018 02:35pm

Very good, they should be made to pay such ads from own pockets and all such payments made in the past should be recovered from the individuals and CMs of the provinces

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sarfaraz

Feb 28, 2018 02:36pm

Salute the CJP for tackling problems none could dare and think so far in this country of Maha corrupt rulers. Political parties, rulers and Party heads hand over 'envelops' to Journalists TV anchors and media persons to propagate self at people's money. The less said is better.

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Patriotic

Feb 28, 2018 02:39pm

Please take some notice on Senate Elections and candidate deals as they openly discuss on different channels.

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Adeel Saleem

Feb 28, 2018 02:40pm

CJP you are doing a very good service. You are the MAN.

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naji

Feb 28, 2018 02:45pm

Yes, it is pre-poll rigging. Very good move by CJ, this must be stop all over Pakistan especially in Sindh. We can witness very expensive banners in favor of ruling party of Sindh who made this city of Karachi a garbage dump.

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mirza

Feb 28, 2018 02:50pm

Very interesting chief justice took notice .

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israr khan

Feb 28, 2018 02:51pm

"Taxpayers' money is being used for self-promotion; big advertisements are awarded at the nation's expense," awesome now take them to cleaners

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muzammil

Feb 28, 2018 02:52pm

we appreciate each and every steps taken by CJP. This is only the beginning and hope coming CJP will follow the footsteps as well.

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Mian

Feb 28, 2018 02:52pm

Thank you Honorable CJP.
It wS due since long time.only we have Narcissist democracy in the world.
Please put a ban on developmental projects advertisements forever.

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Last comment

Feb 28, 2018 02:53pm

With you with heart

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Juna bazar

Feb 28, 2018 02:55pm

@Omer thousand percent right.

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Sajjad

Feb 28, 2018 02:56pm

Thank You CJ.

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Dawn

Feb 28, 2018 02:59pm

Great. If the govt has done any work it speaks by itself.There should be a complete ban on such advertisements till elections.

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Skyhawky

Feb 28, 2018 03:01pm

Bravo CJP sahib. Pakistani nation is thankful to you. The majority of Pakistani people are living below poverty line in dreadful and miserable condition without clean drinking water, education and basic healthcare while the spectacular wealth of Sharif famiky is increasing day by day and have reached trillion dollars of businesses and assets inside and outside of Pakistan. The people's tax money is being spent on corrupt Sharif family's election advertisement, self- promotion and media marketing tactics. Nobody can stop them, not even the so called parliament who doesn't know the problems of poor people and is not interested in solving serious problems of the nation. Thanks CJP sahib for taking suo-motu notice on this important issue.

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Anti-Corruption_Pakistani

Feb 28, 2018 03:01pm

Good move, as this should be investigated thoroughly and actioned accordingly, so that justice is prevailed and no media network is favoured for defending corrupt mafia. This is a serious problem and, as a result, some genuine anchors and media networks are unfairly victimised by government.

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AD

Feb 28, 2018 03:02pm

Good initiative. Since we already have very low tax income, i am quite sure that most of this expense will also be taken from the loans amounts country get from international financial institutions.

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khan

Feb 28, 2018 03:03pm

Now it seems like our country is flourishing, very good sir! Big thanks from common pakistanies.

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James

Feb 28, 2018 03:08pm

Time for media to take moral high ground - give full disclosure of the money they have made from government advertising contracts. Now is the test.

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Asif A. Shah

Feb 28, 2018 03:13pm

The taxpayers money should be spent for the benefit of the public at large only and not on the self promotion of some bigwigs

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ibrahim marghoob

Feb 28, 2018 03:15pm

Bravo CJP. Please make the report public of how much has been spent by each province.

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zees

Feb 28, 2018 03:16pm

Since last 8 years road is broken in front of my house, sewage water flowing on road just like other areas of Karachi because government does not have money to fix it but they have money to pay media houses for their advertisement. Excellent job CJP.

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Khurram

Feb 28, 2018 03:33pm

Thank you CJP

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zorro

Feb 28, 2018 03:36pm

It looks like the CJP is the only honest andsincere person in the country who has some concern for the wrong doings of all the government beurocrats,and politicians in Pakistan.Kudos to this fine gentleman! We need many more like him to get rid of all the riff-raff and put the country on an even keel..

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Faizan

Feb 28, 2018 03:51pm

Respect. Great initiatives as governments are spending beyond their allocated budget.

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Hussain

Feb 28, 2018 03:52pm

Big Applause for CJP

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iffi

Feb 28, 2018 03:56pm

A big SALUTE to honorable chief justice for trying to save billions of this poor nation spent by these so called leaders on these fake / big claims .... plz also make NS return millions spent on his personal property from tax payers money in the name of security .... why didn't he stayed at PM house which is built for this purpose ...

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Uzair

Feb 28, 2018 04:08pm

Awesome! All 3 governments mentioned are clearly guilty of this. The money that is meant for public awareness and education is being spent on self publicity, both on electronic and print media.

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Malik

Feb 28, 2018 05:52pm

Salute to CJ...spurb job

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Nawaz

Feb 28, 2018 06:26pm

Well done CJ. Action against squandering of public money on advertisements aimed at promoting political parties and their agendas has been long overdue. Such ads must be paid for from the party funds not the public exchequer.

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Zafar Ahmed

Feb 28, 2018 08:14pm

These advertisements by federal and provincial governments to be banned by amending the constitution as these ads are just wastage of public money